Well I don't trust any booktuber who stans Cassandra Clare, so I don't trust her opinion on any books whatsover. I also agree that she's loud and annoying and doesn't know how to put on make-up.

However, I have to give her credit for actually putting in a lot of time and effort to write her book.

Re: her book, I wonder about that honestly. Not that she didn't put a lot of effort into revising, clearly there's video proof she did, but I'm referring to the sheer number of times she revised it. I used to watch her writing videos, and she and her editor must have literally done a dozen or more revisions/rewrites, based on the number of videos where she talks about doing yet another edit. Maybe this is just my perception, but how rough was that book originally, that it required such massive edits?

Well I don't trust any booktuber who stans Cassandra Clare, so I don't trust her opinion on any books whatsover. I also agree that she's loud and annoying and doesn't know how to put on make-up.

However, I have to give her credit for actually putting in a lot of time and effort to write her book.

Re: her book, I wonder about that honestly. Not that she didn't put a lot of effort into revising, clearly there's video proof she did, but I'm referring to the sheer number of times she revised it. I used to watch her writing videos, and she and her editor must have literally done a dozen or more revisions/rewrites, based on the number of videos where she talks about doing yet another edit. Maybe this is just my perception, but how rough was that book originally, that it required such massive edits?

Better for her and her editor to recognise that her first edits were crap rather than rushing the book and publishing something like Zenith...
I have to admit that I haven't read Christine's book, so I can't subjectively judge whether it's better than Zenith, but from what you see online it looks that way.

Well I don't trust any booktuber who stans Cassandra Clare, so I don't trust her opinion on any books whatsover. I also agree that she's loud and annoying and doesn't know how to put on make-up.

However, I have to give her credit for actually putting in a lot of time and effort to write her book.

Re: her book, I wonder about that honestly. Not that she didn't put a lot of effort into revising, clearly there's video proof she did, but I'm referring to the sheer number of times she revised it. I used to watch her writing videos, and she and her editor must have literally done a dozen or more revisions/rewrites, based on the number of videos where she talks about doing yet another edit. Maybe this is just my perception, but how rough was that book originally, that it required such massive edits?

Better for her and her editor to recognise that her first edits were crap rather than rushing the book and publishing something like Zenith...
I have to admit that I haven't read Christine's book, so I can't subjectively judge whether it's better than Zenith, but from what you see online it looks that way.

I agree with you on that and unlike Sasha, she made regular writing videos so I can see why more people wanted to read Again But Better unlike Zenith, they felt closer to her book because they were watching the process of her writing it for more than a year and it is a contemporary so it can be a good summer read.
Even though her writing videos are good, I can never stand when she shares her current song that she listens to while writing and then starts singing it. I used to watch almost every video of hers back in 2014/2015, but now I watch her every once in a while because I cannot tolerate her yelling and jumping around anymore.

Well I don't trust any booktuber who stans Cassandra Clare, so I don't trust her opinion on any books whatsover. I also agree that she's loud and annoying and doesn't know how to put on make-up.

However, I have to give her credit for actually putting in a lot of time and effort to write her book.

Re: her book, I wonder about that honestly. Not that she didn't put a lot of effort into revising, clearly there's video proof she did, but I'm referring to the sheer number of times she revised it. I used to watch her writing videos, and she and her editor must have literally done a dozen or more revisions/rewrites, based on the number of videos where she talks about doing yet another edit. Maybe this is just my perception, but how rough was that book originally, that it required such massive edits?

Better for her and her editor to recognise that her first edits were crap rather than rushing the book and publishing something like Zenith...
I have to admit that I haven't read Christine's book, so I can't subjectively judge whether it's better than Zenith, but from what you see online it looks that way.

I mean, you're not wrong. Better to edit the hell out of it and get it somewhere in the vicinity of readable than release a steaming pile of crap, but the fact that it needed that much editing in the first place is just telling imo. I mean, I don't think anywhere here is questioning the fact that she got her book deal because of her platform, but if we were, the need for such hefty edits pretty much hammers it home that she got a book deal because of her online following, not her skill as a writer. And after all of those edits, the thing still only has a rating of 3.72 on Goodreads. Better than Zenith's 3.12 (yikes!), but still...

THE BAR OF STANDARDS IS SO LOW. We're congratulating someone for putting effort into their job as a writer. I'm not even interested in reading her book bc I feel like it'll be the same as every cutesy YA contemporary novel on the market rn.

I mean, you're not wrong. Better to edit the hell out of it and get it somewhere in the vicinity of readable than release a steaming pile of crap, but the fact that it needed that much editing in the first place is just telling imo. I mean, I don't think anywhere here is questioning the fact that she got her book deal because of her platform, but if we were, the need for such hefty edits pretty much hammers it home that she got a book deal because of her online following, not her skill as a writer. And after all of those edits, the thing still only has a rating of 3.72 on Goodreads. Better than Zenith's 3.12 (yikes!), but still...

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I don't agree that Goodreads rating actually says anything about a book tbh. 3.12 is pretty good for a book that received so much backlash imo

I mean, you're not wrong. Better to edit the hell out of it and get it somewhere in the vicinity of readable than release a steaming pile of crap, but the fact that it needed that much editing in the first place is just telling imo. I mean, I don't think anywhere here is questioning the fact that she got her book deal because of her platform, but if we were, the need for such hefty edits pretty much hammers it home that she got a book deal because of her online following, not her skill as a writer. And after all of those edits, the thing still only has a rating of 3.72 on Goodreads. Better than Zenith's 3.12 (yikes!), but still...

I don't agree that Goodreads rating actually says anything about a book tbh. 3.12 is pretty good for a book that received so much backlash imo
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Eh. Everyone with a following like Sasha's is going to have stans to balance out the 1 star reviews, so even with all the criticism, Zenith was never gonna end up in the 1-2 overall star range. I think Goodreads is usually a pretty good barometer for a book's quality, provided the author doesn't already have a platform elsewhere, and is thus guaranteed book sales/approval from fans, à la Sasha or Christine. I mean, Zoella's book got dragged to filth and she's still at like, a 3.4 rating. Once we bring stans into the conversation, the rating is always gonna skew higher than it would otherwise imo. /shrug

Well I don't trust any booktuber who stans Cassandra Clare, so I don't trust her opinion on any books whatsover. I also agree that she's loud and annoying and doesn't know how to put on make-up.

However, I have to give her credit for actually putting in a lot of time and effort to write her book.

Re: her book, I wonder about that honestly. Not that she didn't put a lot of effort into revising, clearly there's video proof she did, but I'm referring to the sheer number of times she revised it. I used to watch her writing videos, and she and her editor must have literally done a dozen or more revisions/rewrites, based on the number of videos where she talks about doing yet another edit. Maybe this is just my perception, but how rough was that book originally, that it required such massive edits?

Better for her and her editor to recognise that her first edits were crap rather than rushing the book and publishing something like Zenith...
I have to admit that I haven't read Christine's book, so I can't subjectively judge whether it's better than Zenith, but from what you see online it looks that way.

I mean, you're not wrong. Better to edit the hell out of it and get it somewhere in the vicinity of readable than release a steaming pile of crap, but the fact that it needed that much editing in the first place is just telling imo. I mean, I don't think anywhere here is questioning the fact that she got her book deal because of her platform, but if we were, the need for such hefty edits pretty much hammers it home that she got a book deal because of her online following, not her skill as a writer. And after all of those edits, the thing still only has a rating of 3.72 on Goodreads. Better than Zenith's 3.12 (yikes!), but still...

Nah, most books require a TON of editing. "Writing is rewriting", etc. Plus I believe she got her agent (because of her fame) pretty early in the process, whereas most debut authors would have done more editing before the query process. And I think most of her editing was to lower her astronomic word count.

That said, the book ain't great. I was looking forward to it mainly because I'd seen how much work she'd put into it, but I couldn't get through much of it.